BDN

A man rows a boat to the pier in Northeast Harbor Thursday afternoon, Sept. 2, 2010. The harbor was nearly full Thursday afternoon as it is a fairly well-protected area during storms. Hurricane Earl is forecast to cause tropical storm conditions along the coast of Maine Friday and Saturday. (Bangor Daily News/Gabor Degre) Buy Photo

BDN

Mike Garrity, the sternman on the lobsterboat Allegiance, unties the dock line as they left to unload lobstertraps at a float in Northeast Harbor Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. David Graves, the owner of the boat, said that in preparation for Earl they moved about 100 traps to deeper water and hauled out another 100 to protect them from possible damage by the hurricane that is forecast to pass by the Maine coast Friday and Saturday. (Bangor Daily News/Gabor Degre) Buy Photo

AP

Chief hurricane forecaster James Franklin shows the projected path of Hurricane Earl up the east coast of the U.S. during a live broadcast from the National Hurricane Center in Miami Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. The Eastern Seaboard from North Carolina to Maine is on alert for a Labor Day weekend pounding by waves, gales and Rain.(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Buy Photo

BDN

(BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY GABOR DEGRE) CAPTION Matt Dunbar of A.W. Pettegrow Marine Sevices in Southwest Harbor washes a Hinckley Talaria 42 after it was hauled out of the water at the Hinckley Company boat yard Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. The boat's owner, Roger Ackerman, said that he would rather play it safe in case Hurricane Earl comes close to the coast. . "To be safe we pull it out, but we will have it put back in. There is another good month of the season left," he said. (Bangor Daily News/Gabor Degre) Buy Photo

ELLSWORTH, Maine — Hurricane Earl continued to march north Thursday, setting coastal residents on edge from North Carolina to Maine and prompting federal officials to warn the public to make contingency plans as soon as possible.

“This is a day of action,” Craig Fugate, administrator of Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday morning during a telephone conference with reporters. “Conditions are going to deteriorate rapidly along the East Coast tonight and tomorrow.”

Hurricane warnings for the Category 2 storm, which Thursday evening had estimated sustained winds of 110 mph, had been established for coastal North Carolina, Cape Cod and southeast Massachusetts, while all of the Maine coast was under a tropical storm watch. At about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the center of the storm was located roughly 160 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C.

The storm is expected to roar into the Gulf of Maine tonight and to pass into Canadian waters Saturday morning.

Gov. John Baldacci met with federal, state and county emergency response officials in Augusta on Thursday afternoon to assess the storm’s damage potential. According to Baldacci, Hancock and Washington counties likely will experience the highest winds, which could range between 39 and 73 mph.

In a prepared statement, he said Earl’s effects may range from high waves and moderately high winds and rain to a potentially heavier impact statewide if it moves farther west.

“The state is coordinating information and resource needs to protect people in Maine,” Baldacci said in the statement. “We’ve been through storms before, and we have been preparing for many days with our public and private partners. We have emergency personnel in Augusta and on the ground across the state ready for this storm no matter what track it takes.”

The National Weather Service has indicated that regardless of the eventual track of Hurricane Earl, high waves and strong rip currents are likely along the entire coastline of Maine, according to Baldacci.

Officials in Acadia National Park, where a 7-year-old girl died last year when a wave generated by Hurricane Bill dragged her and several others into the water, have said they plan to monitor weather conditions and to restrict access to some parts of the park if they become severe enough. These restrictions could include closing the park’s Seawall and Blackwoods campgrounds, which are located on Mount Desert Island near the shore, they have said.

Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said Thursday that the storm is expected to weaken but remain relatively strong as it moves north. The storm’s center likely will pass just east of Nantucket Island, immediately south of Cape Cod.

“The [hurricane’s] eye is going to be huge by then” Read said.

He said the storm is expected to grow in size, though not necessarily in strength, during an eyewall replacement cycle, but when this might occur he was not sure. An eyewall replacement cycle is when a small, tight eye — the calm center of a hurricane around which the storm’s winds swirl — collapses and is replaced by a larger eye, he said. This could spread the hurricane’s winds out over a greater storm diameter, Read said.

The National Weather Service is predicting wind gusts up to 85 mph for Cape Cod and gusts of more than 100 mph on Nantucket.

Mark Bloomer, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou, said Thursday that the storm is expected to remain a hurricane as it passes Cape Cod and enters the Gulf of Maine.

“As it passes Cape Cod, it would probably go from a Category 2 [hurricane] down to Category 1 as it moves toward Nova Scotia,” Bloomer said. Category 1 hurricanes have sustained wind speeds between 74 and 95 mph, he said.

Bloomer said a major storm surge is not expected, but that waves kicked up by the storm are expected to be between 15 and 20 feet high.

“[People] definitely should stay off the water,” Bloomer said. “They should secure any boats. If they’re going to be out along the shore, they should keep a really safe distance.”

According to Read, Earl’s winds could take a significant toll on trees and tree limbs because they are still covered with foliage. The presence of leaves on the trees makes them more susceptible to powerful winds, he said, which could bring limbs and power lines down and even uproot trees.

Preparations for Earl continued in earnest Thursday along the Maine coast as many fishermen, boat owners and service yards worked feverishly to secure their gear and find shelter for their vessels.

Clayton Smith and his colleagues at Yachting Solutions in Rockport were scrambling Thursday to get boats to safety. He said his company was being aggressive even though the hurricane’s precise path was uncertain.

They planned to pull 40 boats from the water in 48 hours.

“Complacency is a bad thing. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said.

On Mount Desert Island every mooring or boat slip in Northeast Harbor, which is fairly well-protected, had been reserved by midday Thursday, though many remained empty in the afternoon. Staff at the harbor master’s office said that some boats were out on the water for the day but that they expected the harbor to be at maximum capacity throughout the weekend.

Steve and Mary French of Newburyport, Mass., found a slip for their 30-foot leisure yacht Ripple at the Northeast Harbor marina Wednesday. They said Thursday they had planned to spend about a week cruising up the coast from Portland, where they keep their boat, but that Earl was making them extend their trip.

The Frenches said they plan to sleep on their boat in Northeast Harbor through the weekend, unless the weather gets really rough and they decide to seek out a hotel room. “We decided it would be a longer pit stop,” Steve French said, relaxing on his boat as it was tied up at the slip. “It might cost us a day or two [extra] overall.”

He said they had been in Bar Harbor, but decided to head around MDI to Northeast Harbor when they heard Earl was coming. “We figured this would be a better place to watch the weather go by,” French said.

Charlie Phippen, Bar Harbor’s harbor master, said Thursday that he expected all the local boats to be sheltered elsewhere by Friday night. Roughly a dozen boats remained on moorings in Bar Harbor on Thursday afternoon, but the vast majority of the moorings were empty.

Phippen said Maasdam, a large cruise ship that can carry up to 1,200 passengers, had been scheduled to stop in Bar Harbor today but decided to cancel the visit. He said he had not heard any news about cruise ship visits scheduled for Sunday, when the Maasdam is expected again and Explorer of the Seas, a 3,100-passenger-capacity ship, also is expected to appear in Frenchman Bay.

Phippen said Bar Harbor has experienced storm-driven waves and tidal surges before, but that Earl is the first storm in recent memory that also is expected to bring tropical-storm-force winds.

“It looks bad, the worst I’ve seen in the 10 years I’ve been doing this,” Phippen said.

Alec Phippen, a local lobsterman, said Thursday that he had moved about 50 or 60 of his traps that morning, either to deeper water or onto dry land. Deeper water, he said, tends to be less violent in storms than shallower water.

He also predicted Bar Harbor would be empty of boats by today.

“There won’t be [any left],” he said. “They’d be stupid to [leave them]. This is the worst harbor for a hurricane.”

Washington County’s Emergency Management Director Mike Hinerman was packing his car as fast as he could Thursday morning. On vacation in New Jersey, Hinerman said he was driving all day to get back to Maine ahead of Hurricane Earl.

“I should get there about midnight,” he said. “By 8 a.m. Friday the EMA center at Machias will be up and running.”

Hinerman said no shelters have been set up in any community, but EMA was prepared to open shelters if the hurricane warrants them.

“We are already making preliminary plans with the Red Cross,” he said. Hinerman also participated in a conference call — while on the road — with Maine Emergency Management Agency officials Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, fishermen from Eastport to Steuben were pulling their boats out of the water Thursday or moving them to sheltered coves.

Eastport fishermen were packing the boats in the sheltered area between the breakwater and land.

The annual Salmon Festival planned here for this weekend is still on, but organizers have moved most of the Friday and Saturday events inside to the Eastport Arts Center. Sunday events, including the salmon dinner, will be held on Water Street as originally planned.

At Jonesport, town clerk Michele Libby said her husband already had moved his lobster boat, the Michele Lee, out of the water Thursday morning.

“Everybody is getting their boats out,” Libby said.

At Cutler, town clerk Teresa Bragg said the harbor was “pretty sheltered” so fishermen had checked the strength of their moorings and “tied pretty much everything down.”

At Lubec’s harbor, however, boats were being moved up to sheltered coves, and the seasonal piers were being removed from the harbor and the Narrows.

“It’s supposed to come in on the high tide,” Assistant Harbor Master Ricky Bradley said. “Everybody’s taking their stuff out of the water.”

At Cobscook Bay State Park, campers also were waiting for more accurate storm predictions.

Ranger Charles Moores said the 107 sites were not full but they were expected to be by Saturday morning. As of Thursday afternoon, the park had received only a single cancellation.

“The campers all know the storm is coming. Many of them have been up here [to the park office] getting updated,” Moores said.

Read, director of NHC, said Wednesday that if the storm drifts farther west than expected, any parts of the coast to the east of the storm center could be more seriously affected. Because hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, winds on the east side of the hurricane’s eye tend to be stronger when the storm moves northward, he said. Consequently, areas hit by the east side of a typical hurricane tend to have more severe damage than do areas to the west of the hurricane’s eye.

“In general, the [east] side of a storm provides the worst [weather],” Read said.

Officials at all levels of government have urged residents, especially along the coast, to closely monitor the progress of Earl and to observe safety precautions during the storm.

State officials said Thursday that updated information about preparing for Hurricane Earl and other safety messages can be found online at www.maineprepares.com.

BDN reporter Sharon Mack and The Associated Press contributed to this report.